The story of our family and God's grace on this earthly journey when things do indeed change "in the blink of an eye."

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Inpatient

I would have never dreamed by the way our Wednesday morning started off that we would have ended up with another admission to Children's Hospital by the end of that day, but here we sit...inpatient again. At this point nobody really knows what Sophie Kate has, we know what she doesn't have. She doesn't have pneumonia, the flu or viral meningitis. Her blood work looks good and her electrolytes are in balance, yet she continues to spike a fever and vomit/retch. The later of which is a really really bad thing since she has a fundoplication through which she is not supposed to be able to vomit, but I can't let myself go there just yet. She has an IV and she is getting meds, but she is completely off her gtube feeds for the time being.

Our early morning started off normal but by about 10:00 I noticed SK getting sleepy. She slept through part of her first therapy, she slept through almost all of her second therapy, which was the Vitalstim therapy that we have recently started, by this point my warning signals were going off. She then slept on and off the whole way home and then once we got home she proceeded to lay on the couch and sleep some more...all of this was very unusual coming from a girl that takes one 20 minute nap a day.

I was on high alert by this time...this was not my SK, she was lethargic and in and out of fitful sleep. About 20 minutes after her second feeding of the day she started vomiting and the decision was made to take her downtown. Misery then ensued, we spent 8 hours in the ER...she had a fever of 102.6 and continued to vomit/retch. All kinds of tests were run and everything came back negative, clear and good while SK continued to look absolutely miserable.

So I was in the middle of my hard sell in convincing the ER docs to let us go home and I asked, "Can't we just have "normal kid" virus, can't it just be that?" The answer to my question was yes, she can just have a "normal kid" virus. So I said great, people handle that at home all the time and SK has always done better at home. So they agreed that if she could hold down some Pedialyte through her gtube they would let us go home. We didn't even get that far, she put on quite a show right there in front of the docs (and I will spare you all the gory details) so I was vetoed and the decision was made for us that we were staying.

It has just been reiterated to me over and over the past 24 hours how quickly things can change with her. Yes of course SK can get "normal kid" stuff like viruses, the thing is though we have to go inpatient to get over them. So now when I ask the question "OK, do we think this is just a virus?" I am getting the response "We sure hope so." That's great, thanks for the firm and confident response. It doesn't make me crazy scared at all, oh no, now I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

So here I sit with my girl once again in a place that is way too familiar to us. It's been so hard to come back, we had been gone so long. The plan is to continue IV fluids and let her tummy rest for a while, then start back on some slow feeds with Pedialyte some time Thursday morning. Her fever continues to come back when the Motrin wears off but at least at this point she won't be getting dehydrated.

That's our story for now and I will be continuing my big push to get us out of here to whoever will listen (I know that shocks those of you who know me). I thought I was convincing people in the ER up until the admitting doc came in and then I knew that I had been over ruled and defeated. Seriously I was telling Chad at 9:30 at night that we were not staying we were coming home (again, shocker I know), maybe I was the only one that was thinking we were coming home all along.

Thanks for checking in on us, please pray for our girl. I'll update when I can.